Foreign pupils perform well but drop out early
Children of immigrants attending secondary schools in Attica generally perform well in their studies, yet only a fraction of those in junior high school go on to senior high, according to data made public by the Immigration Policy Institute (IPI) yesterday. One of every 10 pupils in secondary education in Attica is the child of immigrants from a non-European Union country, with Albanians comprising 80 percent of all foreign students, according to IPI’s research, which was conducted over the last academic year. In schools in the City of Athens, some 18 percent of pupils are the children of immigrants, IPI President Alexandros Zavos told a press conference. There are currently 14,115 foreign students in Attica secondary schools, and this figure is steadily rising, Zavos said. But even though 36 percent of foreign students receive grades ranging from good to excellent and only 13 percent get bad grades, the numbers attending senior high school classes are a third lower than those at junior high, IPI says.
